


beneath wings of night

by rememberhow



Category: Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Major Character Injury, Post-Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:34:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24085957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rememberhow/pseuds/rememberhow
Summary: a caper goes awry and carmen and the team deal with the aftermath. shadowsan grapples with his feelings for carmen.
Relationships: Carmen Sandiego | Black Sheep/Shadowsan
Comments: 15
Kudos: 49





	beneath wings of night

**Author's Note:**

> age-gap ship ahead !!

The joy and the chaos,  
the demons we’re made of.  
\- _Hold On_ , Chord Overstreet 

—

Shadowsan moves like a bird of prey, taking over large swaths of land with fierce stealth and silence. The only evidence he was ever there is the quiet clap of wind left in his wake. 

Carmen Sandiego has never seen Shadowsan injured. Not like this. There is so much blood. She’s kneeling over his body, and there’s so much blood and she doesn’t know where it’s coming from but it won’t stop, soaking through his kosode and staining her hands as she tries to apply pressure to a wound she can’t see. 

She knows he’s felt it thousands of times before, but Shadowsan has never _shown_ pain. He throws his head back as she presses somewhere near his ribcage, gritting his teeth together and squeezing his eyes shut. 

“Sorry,” she mutters hastily, “sorry.” 

They both hear the footsteps bounding up the steps, nearing the door. Player had managed to disable the elevators and she had barricaded the doors with whatever she could find, but Carmen knew it was only a matter of time before the operatives reached them. 

The operatives ram something against the door, and again, and the whole floor shakes. 

She glances out the floor to ceiling windows. In any other circumstances, the view from Taipei 101 would be beautiful, she notes absently—from the seventieth floor, she can almost see the whole city, basking under the golden light of the evening sun and the clear sky, awash with pink and orange and deep blue. 

_Red, you have to leave,_ now. _I’m watching the security footage. That door’s gonna break any second._

When she looks back, the footsteps only increase in number, and Shadowsan’s eyes are open, and incredibly pained. “They are only coming up southside.” He grimaces and his hands curl into fists at his sides. “You have to go through the other exit.” 

“And _leave_ you?” Carmen says. “Are you insane? You’re bleeding, you’ll—” 

“I compromised the mission. This is my fault.” Stubborn to a fault, Carmen thinks, and she’s unable to stop the faint prickle of tears behind her eyes as she watches the master struggle to speak. “Go. You still have time.” 

Time. All the time in the world still couldn't have helped them. They received the tip when they were already in the airport, en route to Hong Kong, but once Player informed the team that there were lives at stake, there was no question in doing everything they could to thwart V.I.L.E. 

The surrounding streets were swarmed with undercover operatives when the team arrived—Zack and Ivy barely managed to cover for them when Carmen and Shadowsan were recognized. By the time the two snuck in through an underground entrance, the entire building was placed on lockdown. The mission became a game of cat and mouse, and the only way to go was up. 

According to Player, V.I.L.E. had been slowly infiltrating Taipei 101 for at least two years. They had set base in one of the floors and took their sweet time bringing in operatives disguised as regular civilians to transfer the skyscraper’s profits to V.I.L.E.’s funds. 

Player only discovered the plan when he came across a government order to inspect the office V.I.L.E. had occupied, which meant the criminal organization was expecting to be caught and were going to erase their tracks one way or another. 

“Cover for me,” Carmen told Shadowsan, before she ran for the forty-second floor where the explosives were held. She should have known better—no matter how skilled, one man cannot overpower a hundred. When they rendez-voused on the fifty-ninth, Shadowsan nearly fell into her, gripping her weakly as he coughed and sputtered blood. 

Their second goal had been to find the location where V.I.L.E. was storing a database of classified information, on a different floor higher up in the building, still. The sheer amount of intel would be a massive advantage for them. But Shadowsan is bleeding out on the ground, and the warm blood on Carmen’s hands is getting cold, and beneath her, so is he. 

“No,” Carmen says, shaking her head fiercely. “I’m not leaving you here, Shadowsan.” Another crash. A dent bulges from the metal door. 

_Carm? It’s Zack. I don’t mean to scare you, but, well—_

_Carm! Did you download the files yet? Zack and I are being chased, there’s at least twenty of them, I don’t know how much longer we can hold them off! Hello? Carm?_

“Carmen.” His voice is weak, imploring. 

Carmen looks out the window again. 

_Bang._

The dazzling lights of the city. 

Isn’t it funny how time slows down? 

_Bang._

_Bang._

She turns to him. “Do you trust me?” 

“Carmen,” Shadowsan says again, staring right at her, “with my life.” 

“Then hold on.” She helps him up and grabs on tight around his waist, slowly standing both of them up. Shadowsan’s arms clutch feebly around her and his body feels limp, defeated. “This is going to be a bit of a stretch. Let’s just hope we make it.” 

She rams the heel of her boot through the glass once, twice, and the window comes shattering down like a waterfall in front of them. The wind blows in a sudden cold gust, and Carmen feels Shadowsan’s body shudder against her. She extends her arm and the grappling hook shoots forward, rocketing through the air towards the nearest building, at least four hundred feet below them. 

“Ivy. Zack. In about seven seconds, pinpoint my location. Try to get there as soon as possible.” She doesn’t wait for a response. Everything’s drowned out in the sound of blood rushing in her ears. 

The door snaps from its hinges and skids towards them, two dozen spies bursting out from the hall and sprinting forward. 

She feels the rope go taut. 

Carmen tightens her grip on Shadowsan and steps off the edge of the building. And then they’re off, hurtling over the streets of Taipei, silent birds stirring the night air. 

—

Shadowsan wakes up in a familiar place, with a woman in a red coat at the foot of the hotel bed, her head bowed. The pain is still there, but duller, like a faded memory, and as the old ones resurface he fears he might have been asleep for as long as days. 

“You’re going to try to apologize. Again.” Carmen stands and moves to sit on the edge of bed. She looks like she hasn’t slept in days and her crimson hair is a messy mane around her head, and yet somehow, she’s still beautiful. Somehow her eyes are still kind and patient. “But please, Shadowsan, save your breath.” 

He tries to push himself up and his mouth falls open on a silent groan. 

“Easy, easy,” Carmen holds him from under his arms, helping him up and adjusting the pillow behind him. He’s in a clean haori, he realizes, but the hakamas are gone. “Here, drink this.” She reaches for a glass on the nightstand, holding it to his mouth and tilting it slightly. He drinks nearly all of it. 

“How long was I out?” Shadowsan rasps, clearing his throat. 

“About two days.” He hears her throat go tight, making her voice quaver in a way it never does. “After they operated on you, you faded in and out of consciousness for a while.” 

“ _Operated?_ I had surgery?” Shadowsan’s expression darkens. “Carmen, you know that makes it about a hundred times easier for V.I.L.E. to track—” 

“You were going to die.” She lays it out simply, squashing the memory of hot blood and Shadowsan’s fading pulse. “We had to.” 

Shadowsan just sighs. 

“What was I thinking?” Carmen pinches the bridge of her nose between her fingers, lowering her head again. “Leaving you alone to fend off _a hundred spies_? God, I was so stupid. _Irrational_.” 

He shakes his head. “It was the only way you could have found the detonators on time. One of us had to stay behind,” Shadowsan says, slowly. “I should have been more focused on finding an escape and joining you, rather than fighting them. I’m not sure what possessed me to…” 

Ah, but at the same time that it’s such a foreign thing for him, he knows all too well _what possessed him_. If he closes his eyes for a second too long, he can still feel the terrifying thrill of weightlessness as Carmen stepped off the building, the iron clench of her arm around his middle, the only thing keeping him grounded and conscious. _Do you trust me?_

Of course. Always, always. 

“There you go again,” Carmen frowns, bringing him back to the present, “blaming yourself. I should be the one apologizing. I acted too impulsively, and you got hurt as a result. I should’ve thought our plan through more.” She takes her hat off, placing it beside her on the bed. “The data and our chance of getting any intel are long gone by now. I’m sorry.” 

“None of us were anticipating V.I.L.E. to have amassed so many men here. You have nothing to apologize for. The important thing is that you saved lives—” 

Carmen averts her gaze, and he doesn’t notice. 

“—hundreds, even thousands of them. ” The side of Shadowsan’s mouth quirks up, and that makes Carmen feel lighter, slightly. “Besides, you got us out on time. Quite an impressive jump, Sandiego.” 

She returns the small smile. “Thank Ivy for grappling hooks, right?” 

Shadowsan looks around the room and strains his ears to hear too-loud whispers. “Where are Zack and Ivy?” 

“Sleeping. In the room next door,” she tells him. Ivy fractured a wrist and Zack a couple ribs, but she decides to save that for later. Then she grimaces, and Shadowsan can’t help but feel dread in the pit of his stomach. “And I wasn’t sure you’d want them here when…” 

His eyes narrow at her. “What?” 

“Your wounds need redressing, and you’re probably going to say ‘I’m a grown man, I can dress my own wounds,’ but you were stabbed _and_ burned and your body needs to heal from the trauma, and to be quite frank you’re in no condition to put that much strain on yourself, and I really think I should help you, and I’m sorry about your dignity but I’m not taking no for an answer,” Carmen says all at once. She inhales enormously after, and releases the breath. “There.” 

Shadowsan holds her gaze for a moment, the line between his brows hard-set. 

Then his face softens. “Okay.” 

Carmen’s eyes widen slightly in surprise, but she silently gets up and returns with gauze, a bowl of water, soap, and a towel. She pulls the throw blanket back. 

“Can you sit up on your own?” 

“Yes.” 

She helps him to sit away from the headboard and then sits in front of him, unfastening the front of his haori. Shadowsan shivers as soon at the first brush of warmth against his skin. He watches their reflection in the window next to them, her nimble hands gently pulling the haori off both his shoulders to expose his upper half. The skies are dark, but Taipei never sleeps—the city lights twinkle like stars below them, glass skyscrapers holding tiny reflections of night life. 

Shadowsan closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to see how she’s going to react to whatever she’s looking at. 

For a while, she doesn’t move, says nothing. Carmen traces the dozens of scars peeking out of the bandages with her eyes, silvery slashes of skin serving as permanent reminders of a reckless youth and old capers. 

He tries to focus his mind in the absence of touch and voice, but, of course— 

_I’m not leaving you here, Shadowsan._

He knew she would have said the same to any team member, but he couldn’t shake the realization that, after becoming Shadowsan, Carmen was the first person who had ever treated him as anything more than an asset to the overarching goal, more than a cold-blooded killing machine. 

He can’t stop the quiet gasp that escapes when Carmen starts to unwrap the gauze around his abdomen. She stills immediately and looks up at him. “Okay?” 

“Yes,” Shadowsan replies. “You may continue.” 

“Okay. Just let me know if it’s too much.” 

“I will,” he says. 

He stays as still as he can, keeping his eyes closed for fear that if he opens them, he will lose his composure again. She works carefully for the rest of the night, going through the repeated motions of removing old gauze, cleaning, and applying new dressing. They don’t say anything. 

By the time she’s finished, she can tell just sitting upright has exhausted him. She helps Shadowsan to bed and climbs into the one next to his. 

Before she reaches for the light switch, Shadowsan speaks. “Thank you, Carmen.” 

For a moment, she falters, seems to stumble over her words. “Yeah,” Carmen says, swallowing. “Of course.” 

She turns off the light. They are left in the quiet dark. 

—

They fly straight back to San Diego a few days later. The Hong Kong heist was called off, and so was every other caper they would have completed that month. The team spent a week in the warehouse, speaking of anything but _it_ or not really speaking much at all, and it takes Shadowsan another to regain his combat abilities. 

Carmen spars with him often. It’s the closest she can get to forgetting, when she fights until she’s breathless, vision swimming and blurred with dripping sweat. 

She tries to go easy on him, but she forgets a lot. She apologizes a lot. 

There’s a stifling fog following every one of them into every room. The air is too thick, too heavy to breathe in, and as they trudge through it everyday, Carmen thinks it might be sapping the life out of them. She knows Ivy’s been as restless at night as she has. Zack is sleeping longer hours and barely talking to anyone. Whenever he’s online, Player has a constantly on-edge tone to his voice, like the predator’s just around the corner. 

A year ago, Carmen might have told them all to snap out of it, might have been able to step up as the team leader and helped them up, one by one. 

She almost wants to laugh thinking about it. _Where’s that Carmen gone?_ she wonders, standing in her front of the mirror in her washroom, staring at the dull sheen of her eyes, the dark crescents under them, the stray locks of unbrushed hair that she doesn’t bother tucking away. 

“Tell me something,” she mutters to her reflection, and she keeps staring, and she doesn’t know what to tell herself. 

When Shadowsan is almost fully recovered, the team is just as silent and still. Carmen, in her head, already made the decision that they aren’t returning to the job any time soon. She doesn’t remember when she casually let it slip to the others—save for Shadowsan—but she wasn’t sure they were really listening when they quietly agreed. 

Upon discovering this, Shadowsan rebukes the idea so severely that Zack and Ivy are certain they’ve ever seen him so angry. Carmen is quick to click her earpiece off, not wanting Player to be caught in the middle of this. 

“How can you _possibly_ be so—” Shadowsan sighs in exasperation, throwing his hands down on the kitchen counter. Zack and Ivy shrink down lower on the couch and try to focus on the sound of the TV. 

“What? Say it,” Carmen is shouting, glowering at him from across the counter. It’s the first time she’s snapped since they returned, and she hates how much energy it’s already taking out of her. “Since you seem to think I can’t do anything right.” 

“If you are doing this for my protection, Carmen, let me tell you right now that this is a complete and utter foolish waste of time.” 

“This isn’t about you,” she hisses, leaning forward over the counter. She doesn’t know if her mouth is quivering out of fury or fear he'll see through her—both, probably. “V.I.L.E.’s stronghold was much greater than any of us anticipated, and one way or another, each one of us messed up that night.” Carmen shovels a hand through her hair, straightening. “We need time to work with Player to rethink our next missions, especially if we’re going to encounter more of these bases in the future.” 

“I do not agree with this.” Shadowsan’s dark eyes drill straight through hers. “Do you know how much of an advantage we are giving them? In just a month, they can undo all the work we’ve done in the past year.” 

“We aren’t ready to go back in the field. You know that as well as I do. If we rush back into the game, we risk tripping up again.” Carmen clicks her tongue in annoyance. “Why am I even explaining this to you? _You_ should be the logical one here.” 

The lines around Shadowsan’s mouth harden as he clenches his jaw. “I’m not fully convinced this isn’t a ruse for you to take care of me.” 

“Again,” she says, louder, “this isn’t about _you_.” 

“Then help me understand, Carmen Sandiego.” Shadowsan stands back, crossing his arms. “I know we have to further develop strategy with Player, but certainly you three can manage small capers in the meantime. Why are we suddenly on lock-down? Zack’s fine now, you and Ivy weren’t hurt.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, Zack and Ivy exchange a glance, and his stomach twists so dreadfully he might double over. Shadowsan glances back to Carmen, who looks detached now, somewhere else instead of right there across from him. 

“Carmen?” he asks, mouth suddenly dry. “Carmen, tell me you are all okay.” 

She blinks, once, and then her eyes find his. 

The sound of the TV ends. Ivy stands up. “Carm, I think we should tell Shadowsan.” 

“Tell me _what_?” Shadowsan looks from Carmen to Ivy to Zack, who all remain quiet. “Ivy? Zack? What are you not telling me?” 

Carmen clears her throat. She pauses for a moment too long before she says, “I’m tired. I’ll see you all in the morning. We’ll talk with Player then.” 

Before anyone can respond, she turns and disappears up the stairs. 

—

It’s you right there, right there in the mirror.  
\- _Looking Too Closely_ , Fink 

Carmen will admit. She likes her new room. It’s—homey, or at the very least, beginning to feel like it. She’s moved her matryoshka dolls here. Actual clothes are beginning to fill the closet that remained empty for the first three months after they bought the warehouse. (Her coat and hat were shoved in there as soon as they returned, though, so she doesn’t open it anymore.) 

The old industrial windows of what used to be an inventory room are stained, but Carmen still appreciates the view. Tonight the skies are starless; only the crescent moon, shy with its pallor, a few gray clouds hanging close to the horizon. San Diego is beautiful in its own right. If she cranes her neck a little she can see past the buildings and find the water, moving with the lazy night breeze, and further still, the hazy line of the jagged mountain ridge. 

Only a few days ago she and Ivy were here living through the memories of that night all over again. It was neither of their ideas—Ivy had just stumbled into her room in the early hours or the morning, hoping she was awake. 

“I can’t sleep,” Ivy admitted, shifting the weight on her feet and leaning on the door jamb. 

“Come on in.” She moved aside on the bed and threw the duvet open, patting the space beside her. Ivy climbed in beside her gratefully, and for a while they were quiet, staring at the ceiling, the wall, outside, where dawn saturated the city in pink. Carmen felt exhausted, suddenly, even though she had been wide awake for the whole night, unable to fall asleep. Her bones were dragging her down, and in that moment, she just wanted to lean against Ivy and close her eyes and be transported someplace else where her chest didn’t feel so heavy. 

“You ever think about it?” Ivy whispered, and unfortunately, Carmen knew immediately what she was talking about. 

“All the time.” It was all she could manage to say without breaking. She had never seen so much fear in the siblings’ eyes than in that van as they sped to the hospital. Ivy was driving, clenching the steering wheel so hard Carmen thought it would break, but could not stop shaking in her seat. She was crying. Carmen tried not to think of the possibility that her tears were blurring her vision. 

Zack was in the seat beside her, clutching his side where he’d probably broken a rib or two, leaning his head back and taking in deep, ragged breaths. 

And Shadowsan’s limp body was on the floor beside her, his head in her lap, his eyes closed. She’d done her best to stop the bleeding with his haori once the van took off, but by the time they had landed on the ground earlier, he was already unconscious. 

Carmen had been grateful for the dark. She couldn’t see the blood leaking all over the back of the vehicle where they sat, or at least could pretend it wasn’t there. She tried to block out the sound of Ivy crying and Zack’s breathing that sounded _wrong_. 

Everything had just gone so wrong, so fast. 

“I saw my brother’s life flash before my eyes,” Ivy said beside her, now, hushed. “I—I thought they were going to snap him in half, oh, God, Carmen, I thought—” 

Carmen instinctively put an arm around her, pulling her close and tight against her body. Ivy buried her face in Carmen’s shoulder, trembling. 

The thing was, Carmen didn’t need to remind myself that this was the fearless, adventurous, brave Ivy. She _knew_ that. 

She also knew that this was the extent of the damage the mission had. 

It was destroying them. 

“I can’t stop seeing it whenever I try to sleep,” Ivy said. “They’re everywhere, and either they’re chasing us and take Zack, or I crash the car, or we don’t reach you on time, or Shadowsan—he—he doesn’t—” 

“I know,” Carmen whispered, nosing into her hair, “I” — _I see it too_ — “know.” 

She pushed herself up, looking at Carmen with something close to desperation. “What are we going to do?” 

Carmen smoothed Ivy’s bangs from her forehead. Ivy and her brother had always been tactile, and although Carmen wasn’t the best at reciprocating, something about this, now, felt natural and necessary. Maybe it was Ivy’s eyes, glassy and distant, or maybe it was the sleep deprivation and the rosy haze of the early morning light. 

She took a short breath in. The room had begun to spin. She could not close her eyes, not now. Ivy would disappear, and the bed under them would become the hard steel floor of the van, and the room the hot suffocating darkness. If Carmen looked down, he’d be there again. The bright streets whizzing by at an impossible speed, but time inching forward terribly slowly, the smell of fresh iron, the rushing noise in her head, the mess of it all. 

Carmen clutched Ivy even closer, hard enough to hurt her, suddenly terrified of the possibility that she, everything, could slip away. “I don’t know.” She couldn’t hear herself, not sure if it came out angry, a whimper, if she’d even spoken at all, but it was as honest as she could be with not Ivy, but herself. “I don’t know.” 

They wouldn’t remember how long they stayed like that, but they got out of bed, eventually, and pretended to disentangle themselves from memory as they trudged down the stairs for breakfast. 

Carmen feels the suffocating weight of that night with Ivy, and every one that came before, and every one that would come, here on the old floorboards, shrunk into herself and leaning against the mattress. It’s too dark outside to see anything, and she didn’t bother to turn her light on. Bad idea, she thinks, because now she knows what this room will become. 

But there are footsteps, and distantly, she recognizes their weight. They become louder and louder until they stop in front of her door. 

She takes a deep breath in, drags her hands over her face, and exhales. 

“Okay,” Carmen mutters, staring at her fingers, “okay.” 

The door creaks open. 

“May I come in?” 

Something compels her to say, “Leave the light off.” 

Shadowsan approaches quietly and folds his legs beneath him on the ground, not in front of her as he usually would, but beside her. The last of the light brings out the hollows of his cheeks, the stark shadows of his throat. He holds her gaze, and for a split second she feels as if they are back to being Black Sheep and the Stealth 101 instructor—for Carmen, a wall of mistrust and animosity lingering between them. But then she watches the hard line of his mouth soften, the subtle raise of his eyebrows as he looks at her in the steady way that he does, and, no, yes, they have changed. 

“I tell myself,” Carmen says to him, brows drawing closer, “that this can go two ways. We harden over, we pick up the pieces and push ourselves, work even harder to defeat them.” She blinks several times, looking to the pitch black night. He keeps watching her. “Or,” she says, “or, we never do. We crumble. We fail.” 

The tremble in Carmen’s mouth as the last word leaves it terrifies her. All she can do is look straight ahead and tighten her jaw. “It’s impossible to forget.” Her eyes blur with tears, but it doesn’t matter—it’s always dark no matter what. 

“Impossible to forget,” Shadowsan says, carefully, quietly, “unless you can’t remember.” 

Her eyes, all their light overshadowed, find his. “How much of that night do you remember?” Carmen whispers. 

“I remember you,” is the first thing Shadowsan doesn’t mean to say, and as heat creeps up his neck he’s immensely grateful for the dark. “I remember being chased up the stairs, and then I found you.” He swallows. The searing sensation lancing through his body is gone. He only remembers Carmen’s eyes veiled with calm. _You made it okay_. How different they look now, like shattered glass; how he wants nothing more than to brush her tears away. “They reached us and the window shattered. Or the other way around.” 

The dark ocean implores. “And then?” 

“We jumped. I woke up in the hotel room.” And, you were there again. “That is… all I remember.” He shakes his head. “I have been blind, haven’t I? You are suffering. Each one of you.” 

She lowers her head and stares at her feet. “Memory,” she says, “can be a terrible thing.” Carmen bites down hard on her tongue, wondering if the pain will bring some sick sort of solace. “Ivy hasn’t been sleeping. Zack can’t seem to get enough sleep. And Player—” She shakes her head to herself. “God, he might have it the worst out of all of us. He blames himself for the whole thing.” 

Carmen hears Shadowsan exhale, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “And you?” 

_Me?_

_It’s like I’ve been standing on a cliff my whole life. I’ve been brave. I’ve been too brave. There is a limit to bravery, isn’t there? There’s a point where it becomes reckless, isn’t there?_

_It’s like someone’s pushed me off. I’m drowning and I can’t get to the surface._

_The light is just so, so far away._

_And I’m getting tired._

Carmen closes her eyes. 

There’s the shuddering darkness, and there’s light shapes. There’s his body, gone limp somewhere between the jump and the landing. There’s the wail of sirens, the screeching of tires, the shouts of a dozen operatives closing in on them. 

Carmen Sandiego opens her eyes, and she’s fully crying now, hot tears streaming down her face. 

Shadowsan watches with anguish. His chest slowly rises and falls. 

“I think I’ve lost myself.” She mumbles it to the man in front of her, to herself, finally, to the ocean she’s trapped in—and the way Carmen sees herself there, she’s screaming it loud and throaty and angry, but she knows, in the grand scheme of things, when everyone takes a step back, she is only a whisper muffled by thunderous waves. 

She wipes her face, opens her mouth, takes a deep breath in and again, lets it go. “I don’t know what’s happening. I’m supposed to be—this person, you know? _Carmen Sandiego_.” Carmen laughs in spite of herself. The name has never felt so foreign in her mouth. She has to wonder if she still knows what it means. “I’m supposed to keep this team together. I’m supposed to harden over and push myself and I _can’t_. And I don’t,” her voice shudders, “know why. 

__

__

“We’re hurting, but you were right. We can’t afford to. I can’t afford to. I should be out there, and everyday that I’m not, V.I.L.E. gets one step closer to winning.” Her body shrinks into itself, knees hugged close to her chest and head tucked behind her arms. Carmen digs her nails into her palms. “Everyday that I’m not, I’m failing everyone.” 

Her mouth falls closed, and finally, she finds Shadowsan’s gaze. She isn’t ready for the way he looks at her, like all of his fronts have been stripped down to nothing except what he is at his core, what they all are: people with demons, doing everything to fight the world’s. 

“Being the good thief is a precarious balance.” He pauses. Then when he thinks of Suhara, when he thinks of the woman before him— _to hell with it_. To hell with being a perfectly poised crane, all rigid edges and calculated articulation, never rippling the water. “Sometimes it feels like the entire world works against you,” Shadowsan plunges forward, “and you are tightrope-walking over an abyss and the other end feels too far away, too bleak for you to be certain of anything, and you think it would be so easy to fall and never resurface.” He’s nearly breathless with it, nearly shaking. 

“But you keep walking. You do it not to prove yourself to anyone, but because it is what you believe in more than anything—helping people, and the fight against those who hurt them. And it gets tiring. It gets isolating. It makes you question what you really believe. But still, you keep walking.” 

Carmen’s heart thumps hard in her chest. The words dissect her, hurting almost as much as they soothe. She leans back against the bed, faces the city, says quietly, “I know.” _More than anyone, anything, I do._ “I’m just—terrified.” And there it is, the admission out in the cold open, and she can’t stop the rest of it from tumbling out. “That I won’t be good enough. That someone’s going to get hurt again and it’s all going to come crashing down. I can’t shake that fear.” 

He shakes his head. “You said we pick up the pieces or we fail. If you’ve taught me anything, though, it’s that strength comes from vulnerability. You broke down every wall V.I.L.E. built around you, and you’ve never been afraid to be anything but yourself no matter who you’re with. But, Carmen, you are forgetting that includes yourself. 

“There is bravery in letting ourselves grieve and cry and _feel_ , in reconciling all these things that make you. But we are human, and they do, and they always will. Allow yourself to hurt and you will begin to heal.” 

The kind eyes stuck on hers don’t waver. 

They never have, have they? 

Carmen breathes out and it feels like the first breath she’s let go in a long time. And, despite the exhaustion set in her bones, she feels the smallest tug of a smile at the side of her mouth. “That’s not the easiest to believe, coming from a stoic, stone-faced ninja,” she says, but her tone is light, soft. 

He returns the smile. “I guess,” he says, “you just have to trust me.” 

“I do,” Carmen says, and she reaches to cover his hand with her own. 

Shadowsan’s usually reflexive instinct to draw back and retaliate is belated enough—or just nonexistent—that he has to stare at their hands for a moment to register what’s happening, before flicking his eyes up to hers. 

“Thank you,” she says, quietly. There has always been a storm in her, Shadowsan supposes—sometimes angry, sometimes quiet, always fiercely compassionate. If only for a moment, tonight the seething rain clouds have begun to let go of some of their weight. 

—

Zack and Ivy, unable to move from where they were huddled on the couch, expected screaming. Carmen looked like she was at her tipping point. Shadowsan became quiet as he watched her leave. The siblings knew that his quiet fury was the most lethal. 

But he followed her upstairs and after half an hour, there was nothing but silence. 

“You don’t think he’s killed her, do you?” 

Ivy smacked Zack’s arm. “Don’t be stupid.” 

On the kitchen counter, Player was listening in on their conversation through Carmen’s phone, which she’d left behind. _He’d never hurt her_ , he said, just loud enough for Zack and Ivy to realize he was there. Then, even quieter, _He loves her, you know._

—

What Zack, Ivy, and Player don’t expect is to have a sit-down conversation, all five of them, the next morning. It involves a lot more heartfelt talk than Zack is prepared for. A lot more crying, too. Ivy doesn’t think she’s ever seen her brother cry so much, but she can understand why—her brother’s never been one to bottle things up and the past few weeks have compelled him to. 

Player joins them from Carmen’s phone in the centre of the coffee table. He isn’t quite ready to share everything he felt and still feels, but knowing everyone else went through similar emotions helps him come to terms with his own and hearing them open up is cathartic in its own way—he tells them as much, and Carmen assures him that they’ll always be there for him, too. 

Zack actually thinks he’s gotten a hold of himself before Shadowsan tells everyone how proud he is of them, and he can’t help becoming a little water-eyed again. 

They are each other’s found family, the team remembers, and they will always have each other to lean on. Carmen knows they haven’t broken out of their memories, but maybe this is a step towards breathing a little easier, like they’re getting closer to the surface. 

—

In some ways, this night is not dissimilar from Taipei. 

In many ways, it very much is. 

The caper was successful. Swift, skilled, decisive. 

There had still been some nervous energy crackling in the air as Shadowsan and Carmen were nearing the location. She seemed restless in the van, eyes flitting everywhere. 

He had touched her arm. “Carmen.” 

She’d given him a reassuring smile. 

And Shadowsan understood when they pushed the back doors open and sprinted out into the cold evening air. They ran alongside each other towards the building doors, and from his periphery he could see the deep-set determination and focus in her hard gaze, the way a smile broke out over her face as her hair dragged behind her in the blistering wind and she kept running onward, onward. 

At a strange surge of melancholic pride, Shadowsan turned his gaze forward again, letting the sharp cold fill his lungs and sharpening his concentration on the task at hand. 

They’re in Manhattan, somewhere. He’s looking out at the great big skyline now, nursing a mocktail to blend in with the crowd. Crashing the party was Zack’s idea, some glitzy late-night corporate gathering located a few blocks away from the bank they’d infiltrated. Shadowsan reluctantly permitted the team to go, but he isn’t sure how they managed to drag him into this mess—something about how he needed to loosen up. (He has a feeling it was all planned, though, because Zack “just happened” to have those suits and dresses lying around in the car.) 

He tries not to lose sight of the three rogues as he watches them flirt and dance with tipsy strangers, snorting occasionally when he overhears the elaborate background stories Zack and Ivy are telling everyone. As the night drones on, the music seems to get louder and the crowd a bit more unruly, and Shadowsan finds himself drawn to the periphery of the party. 

The city is compelling, though. It pulses with life and light, gleaming against the dark drape of evening violet, and a small part of Shadowsan wants to get out of here to breathe in the exhaust and smoke and salt of New York. 

His eyes flick from the streets to the figure approaching him—she looks a bit too formal in her neatly pressed dress shirt and pants, but no one’s really questioning it. He finds himself wondering if someone here has undone the top few buttons of her shirt, or if she’d done it purposely. 

“Carmen,” he says, turning around and raising a brow. She smells like everyone else’s perfume. “Or should I call you Cerise San Clemente?” 

She laughs. It’s a flowering, mirthful sound he will never get tired of. “And what’ve you been going by tonight?” 

“I have not exactly been… mingling,” he says, offering a raised glass. 

Carmen glances at it skeptically, not mimicking the action with hers, and then looks back up at him with a devious smile. “My favorite wallflower, would you care to follow me?” 

_Anywhere, everywhere._ He has to swallow before he nods, trailing after Carmen as she sets their drinks down somewhere and weaves them through the crowd. She pushes a door open, revealing a staircase that leads them up to another door, and when she opens that one he realizes she’s taking them up to the roof. 

The place is empty and, twenty-something stories up, the wind extremely unforgiving. Shadowsan watches Carmen walk to the edge, undoing her hair with one hand and letting it blow wildly around her head. Gravel crunches under his feet as he takes slow forward until he’s beside her, looking out to the expanse of New York. It roars below them, the amalgamated noise of people and traffic and some distant siren. 

“I think I would still be on the wrong side of this fight if it had not been for you.” 

She frowns and shakes her head. “I don’t believe that for one second,” she says. “You’re a good person, Shadowsan. You would have found your way eventually.” 

He doesn’t say anything. He stares at the moon, who is just now making an appearance. 

“You are like a sparrow,” Shadowsan says, before he even thinks, although it might be too quiet to hear over the noise. He speaks to the entire city. “I can never quite catch you.” 

“But you _have_ caught me.” 

He turns to her, surprised, and she’s looking at him with that warmth in her gaze, a small smile on her lips. 

“And you know,” she says, tipping her head forward a bit, “more than anything I hate being caught.” 

Shadowsan doesn’t breathe or move or think. “What are you saying?” 

“I’m saying,” Carmen breathes, “I’m letting you.” 

She takes a step closer until he can feel her long blowing hair tickling his throat. 

Carmen grabs him by the collar of his shirt and pulls him down, and her mouth moves across his in a blur. She hooks her arms around his neck as she kisses him, as Shadowsan slowly kisses her back, his hands finding the small of her back and pulling her closer. 

The wind stops howling. The city slows down and then disappears. 

And the familiar night watches over her foundling birds.

**Author's Note:**

> that is definitely not how a grappling hook works.


End file.
